My husband walked in the front door
yesterday to find me hunched over my laptop on the sofa, squinting at a glaring
white screen in a quickly darkening room. He turned on the lamp and set down
his bags.

“What
are you doing?” he said.

“I’m
writing my friend Annie a thank you email,” I said.

“Which
one is Annie?”

“Annie
of Harper Perennial.”

Since
signing the contract for my novel last summer and my editor thrusting me into
the online world, this has become a more commonplace conversation in our home.
My husband and I have developed new codes of understanding. Annie of Harper
Perennial. Annie the editor. Annie the neighbor’s dog.

“Don’t
be so sure,” he said and kissed my cheek the way he always does when he comes
home from work.

My
husband was joking. I know he was
joking. But what he said got me thinking: am I different online than I am in
real life? The answer: yes and no.

Ponytail
aside, I do get mad sometimes. Like last week when the washing machine ate my
favorite blouse and I tapped its lid punitively, while saying, “Bad washer!
Very bad washer!” Or the week before when my daughter asked me to make banana
bread even though St. Louis was a little like Dante’s Inferno and then wouldn’t
eat any of it because “it looked weird.” Sometimes I get mad. I do.

Other
times I am mind bogglingly happy.

Or
goofy.

Or
serious.

Or
hungry.

Aren’t
we all?

Though
I haven’t yet broken bread with most of my friends online yet, I adore them, I
cherish them, I feel lucky to have met them by clicking (wisely!) on their
Facebook pages, their Twitter profiles, their Blogger accounts. I suspect that
they, too, have their moods, their ups and downs. Maybe some of them wash their
hair three times a day or wear two-day-old socks. Do I care? Nope. A lot of
people say that folks online are different than they are in person. Online they
might spew sunshine while in their “real” lives they cut off drivers on the
highway. In general, I don’t buy it. Sure, there are always a few people like
that, but the women and men I have met online have all been wonderful,
encouraging, and selfless. And that’s how I try to be in all my lives – online
and otherwise.

Do
I fail?

Plenty.

But
I pick myself up and keep trying.

I
don’t like to call my online friends my online friends, mostly because it seems
a lesser form of friendship depending on how you (or maybe not you) think about
it. What I love about them is their incredible diversity. I have friends who
are retired, who are younger than me, who live with a zillion cats – or one
with an adorable teacup pig. I have friends from all over the world, who share
bits and pieces of their lives with me in between making supper or giving their
children baths or gearing up for working the late shift at a bottling factory.
Online we share minutes, sometimes seconds, but I have yet to feel unfulfilled
by these interactions. I wish I could gather them all up and take them out to a
glorious dinner.

“But
then they would see your ponytail,” my husband says tonight when he gets home
from work to yet another darkening living room. He turns on the lamp.

Oh
no, here we go again.

“And
I might even get mad,” I say, but instead of fidgeting with my hair, tonight I
close my computer after typing Have a
great night, Bethie. xox

Oh Rebecca how honest you are. I love, love your style!! I try very hard to be the real me online and it is getting easier...I never made friends very easy and now I have hundreds...young, old, writers, insurance salepeople etc...I love and I think also very important appreciate all of my new friends and their support; including you :) http://www.doreenmcgettigan.com

Haha! Isn't that the beauty of being online? It's our inside selves people see, not our outsides. There are no mirrors, scales, color barriers. A lot of the "isms" are erased online and it's a fabulous way to interact with people and really get to know a different side of them. The inside.